Piglet squid. No really.

Sometimes nature comes up with something so funny-looking you can't quite believe it. Funny-looking to us, anyway. I wonder what we look like to them?

Check out this item on piglet squid. And Google offers a range of other images almost as funny.

In other crazy nature news, jaguars are attracted to Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men fragrance. This is a boon for animal biologists trying to study the elusive big cats, but you might want to think twice before wearing it on your rainforest holiday.

Seed banks and biodiversity

The BBC recently had this nice story of a minute waterlily brought back from extinction through stored seed:

"Two years ago, this delicate bloom went extinct in the wild due to over-exploitation of its habitat.

Luckily its seeds were kept in storage - and were used by Carlos Magdalena to regrow the plant at Kew Gardens - just outside London.

It took him months to find the ideal conditions for growth. He hopes now that the Thermal Lily will flourish once again in the hot springs of Rwanda...." (read more)

There is also a passionate piece on the urgency of banking seed as a way of safeguarding species for the future:

"Kew's Millennium Seed Bank is a unique, global asset. It is the largest facility of its kind in the world and contains the world's most diverse seed collections.

Over the past 10 years, more than 3.5 billion seeds from 25,000 species have been collected and stored in their country of origin and in Kew.

Species are chosen by country partners according to whether they are rare or endangered or of particular potential use - for example as medicine, food, animal fodder or shelter.

Described by Sir David Attenborough as "perhaps the most ambitious conservation initiative ever", the partnership will announce on 15 October the banking and conservation of 10% of the world's plant species." (read more)

And if you thought cities were a desert, in terms of biodiversity, you couldn't be more wrong:

"There are four bodies lying and crouching in our tiny back garden. The ecologists from the Natural History Museum (NHM) got here only minutes ago, but, while the kettle boils, they are already grubbing about behind our bins, under our windowsills, in the lawn, flowerbed and log pile.

They are doing a "bioblitz" – trying to find as many species of animal and plant as possible in this small, suburban south-west London garden. Our back garden is only 12 paces long and seven wide, with, now I look at it through the eyes of ecologists, pitifully few flowers. Happily, they appear undaunted. "The great thing is, even with gardens like this that look fairly sterile, there's always something there," says the museum's insect specialist, Stuart Hine. "We'll move plant pots, and we'll have a look through your log pile . . . Lots of spiders, centipedes, woodlice, slugs – they'll all be there."" (read more)

Kingfishers in action

The Telegraph has these incredible shots of kingfishers fishing, taken by National Geographic photographer Joe Petersburger.

Hard times for honeybees

The BBC's Richard Black compares the plight of frogs with that of honeybees:

"While the chytrid fungus has blown whole [frog] populations away single-handedly in a season's shooting spree, many species undergo a slow, inexorable decline more akin to starvation or an ancient torture; squeezed into corners by the expanding human habitat, poisoned by farmland chemicals, eaten by bigger invasive neighbours, hunted for meat, stressed by temperature rise and stalked by viruses - or any combination of the above."

"As the plot of that detective story becomes clear, it seems that scientists are beginning to write another with a very similar narrative, but this time with bees cast as the victims."

"Bee populations - wild and cultivated - have always had their ups and downs, their years of plenty and years of absence. But about five years ago, commercial beekeepers in the US began reporting total wipe-outs of hives on a scale not documented before, leading to the term colony collapse disorder (CCD)."

Read the whole article here.

Photosynthesising sea slug

Usually only plants can make food directly from sunlight, but a sea slug has been discovered which incorporates algal chloroplasts into its own cells and is performing photosynthesis:

"Some related slugs also engulf chloroplasts but E. chlorotica alone preserves the organelles in working order for a whole slug lifetime of nearly a year. The slug readily sucks the innards out of algal filaments whenever they’re available, but in good light, multiple meals aren’t essential. Scientists have shown that once a young slug has slurped its first chloroplast meal from one of its few favored species of Vaucheria algae, the slug does not have to eat again for the rest of its life. All it has to do is sunbathe."

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/green-sea-slug/#ixzz0cfzARcr9

Thanks Matthew for the link.

Holly and Pohutukawa

How could holly be any more spiky? Have a look at this wintry image by Jesper Grønne, here.





Here in New Zealand it's summer and the pohutukawas are in bloom. Known as "The New Zealand Christmas Tree", they have become something of a cliché in our visual media. However they are still jaw-droppingly magnificent! I snapped these two in Sumner, yesterday:




If you like pohutukawas, you may like to hear about the work of Project Crimson, which campaigns for the protection and propagation of pohutukawa and rata within their natural ranges.

Natural History of Banks Peninsula

Hugh Wilson is legendary on Banks Peninsula for his tireless work creating and maintaining the Ohinewai Reserve, which is being re-vegetated to resemble its original natural state. In addition to his work on Hinewai, Hugh has spent the last 5 years conducting a grid survey of the flora and fauna of the entire Peninsula. This book is a report of his findings, lovingly illustrated with his own drawings and the stunning photographs of a number of other contributors. It's a slim, attractive volume, which contains a huge amount of information, and also overflows with Hugh's infectious enthusiasm. It would make a lovely gift for lovers of Banks Peninsula.

Clever octopuses

For anyone who hasn't seen it, check out this amazing footage of veined octopuses in Indonesia improvising shelters for themselves out of coconut shells. Interestingly, along with cuttlefish and squid, octopuses are coleoidean cephalopods, molluscs which do without an external shell of their own.

More from the BBC:

"The shells provide important protection for the octopuses in a patch of seabed where there are few places to hide.

Dr Norman explained: "This is an incredibly dangerous habitat for these animals - soft sediment and mud couldn't be worse.

"If they are buried loose in mud without a shell, any predator coming along can just scoop them up. And they are pure rump steak, a terrific meat supply for any predator."

The researchers think that the creatures would initially have used large bivalve shells as their haven, but later swapped to coconuts after our insatiable appetite for them meant their discarded shells became a regular feature on the sea bed." -- read whole article

If you want to read more about octopuses, the Wikipedia page has lots of cool stuff.

The Perennial Wheat Project

"We tend to think Earth can provide us with an endless bounty of food. But farming practices in most parts of the world can't work forever. Soil is constantly washing away, and what's left is gradually losing the nutrients it needs to sustain our crops.

"In the prairies of Kansas lives Wes Jackson, a man who has spent his long and rich career trying to invent a new kind of agriculture — one that will last indefinitely."

"To make progress on the biological problem, Jackson recruited a handful of young and ambitious Ph.D. plant breeders. Their mission: nothing less than to reinvent the world's most important crops.

"Jackson decided to figure out a way to breed grain crops so they can be planted once, actually replenish the soil, and be harvested year after year. One of the scientists Jackson brought to the Land Institute to work on this is a Minnesota farm boy turned plant breeder, Lee DeHaan.

"At the time I started here, they said, 'Let's put the youngest guy on wheat, because maybe he can see it through,' " DeHaan says. "We're not expecting it to be something that's real easy to do or something that we'll see the results of really soon."

A fascinating article on NPR, read the whole thing here. Thanks Jason for the link.

Flying hordes

These amazing radar images show the night-time skies over the US are thick with migrating birds. Thanks to Mekayla for the link.

Falcons for grapes

Country Calendar has a nice feature on the Falcons for Grapes project in Marlborough, where New Zealand falcons are introduced to vineyards to discourage smaller birds which damage the grapes. They also look at research into the breeding patterns of these magnificent birds, which are rare and threatened, and the challenges of ensuring their long-term survival. You can view that video here.

The terrific NZ Birds site has background information on the NZ falcon.
And Te Ara has some particularly fine photographs.

Beautiful nature photographs

BBC Nature photographer William A. Bolton is featured in the Guardian with some recent works. They're all very striking, but this one is my favourite.
Thanks to Tom for the link.

More!

My monarch nursery has produced 2 more butterflies, simultaneously!

I noticed this morning that they were looking almost ready, with their wing-patterns clearly visible...

When I checked them maybe 3/4 hour later, a lot had happened!

Chrysalises seem to have a TARDIS quality, it's hard to credit that a whole butterfly can unfold from such a tiny space...

Images copyright 2009 Grace Dalley. All rights reserved.

Very hungry caterpillars

We thought if we planted swan plants we might attract the monarch butterflies to lay their eggs there. It worked!

Unfortunately, there were far more caterpillars than the plants could support, and after they had devoured all the leaves and flowers, they proceeded to eat the stems:

Some of them tried neighbouring plants, but they didn't seem to like them nearly as much.

Some of them got fat enough to think about building a chrysalis:

Here's a chrysalis (green with gold detailing!)

I picked the stems I could find that had chrysalises on them, and brought them inside. One has hatched so far:





It took a while to dry out its new wings. It trotted up and down the windowsill slowly flapping for a long time.

When it seemed to have got the hang of flying, I took it outside:

So that's one success. There are 2 more chrysalises to hatch, so the ratio of skeleton-ised swan plants to butterflies will probably be 1:1!

Thanks Katie for the plants :-)

Images copyright 2009 Grace Dalley. All rights reserved.

Basking bird

When I was in the Botanic Gardens the other day trying to photograph the waterlilies (with only limited success!) I suddenly noticed this sparrow only about a metre away on a gunnera leaf, lying unmoving with his beak open. I thought he might be dead, or dying...

...but of course once he realised I had seen him, he stared paying attention to me...
...and within a few seconds he flew off.

Images copyright 2009 Grace Dalley, all rights reserved.

Lenticular clouds

Summertime in Canterbury is a great time for lenticular clouds - those lens-shaped clouds that form downwind of a mountain range because of air turbulence. Lenticular clouds are beautiful and strange. I'd love to take as good a picture of them as this one by Wairarapa photographer Chris Picking!

Images copyright Grace Dalley, all rights reserved.

Giant eagle at Macraes

The extinct Haast eagle was the largest eagle ever known, so big that it preyed on giant moa. In the bird-dominated New Zealand ecosystem, the Haast eagles filled the niche of the big cats, or of bears - the largest land-based predators. When the giant moa were hunted to extinction by humans, the giant eagles also became extinct.

At the Macraes gold mine site in Central Otago, soon to be the site of Macraes Heritage and Art Park, a giant eagle sculpture made of stainless steel has been erected. The eagle was made by Queenstown sculptor Mark Hill in his studio in Arrowtown. It is 8m tall and has a wingspan of 12m, roughly four times the scale of the extinct bird, so it will be a landmark in the area. And how did it get from Arrowtown to Macraes? It flew, of course!
The ODT has more information about the sculpture here and there are details of the installation, plus a picture of the eagle arriving by helicopter, here.

You can read more about the Haast eagle on the excellent New Zealand Birds site here.
And because I couldn't resist it, here is a video dramatisation of a Haast eagle attacking a person. Please bear in mind there's no hard evidence that the eagles did attack humans, although there is evidence that humans hunted the eagles. Anyway, the video gives you an idea of the size of the birds!

Another highlight of the Macraes Heritage and Art Park is a vast installation of speargrass and snow tussock by Auckland artist John Reynolds. You can read about it in this Art New Zealand feature .

More chances to see

When Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine wrote their brilliant conservation book Last Chance to See.... in 1991, they visited kakapo on New Zealand's Codfish Island, along with a host of other critically endangered animals around the world. Adams himself died tragically in 2001, but zoologist Mark Cawardine is teaming up with the delightful Stephen Fry to revisit the animals described in the book and check on their progress. Fortunately, most of the animals featured have increased in number, the kakapo among them.

Stuff has an item on Cawardine's and Fry's visit to NZ, and says they will be visiting not only kakapo on Codfish Island, but also black robin on the Chathams, kiwi in Waipoua Forest and tuatara and giant weta in Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

There will eventually be a BBC television series, but in the meantime Fry promises to post detailed updates on his redesigned website. And if you haven't already read the book, go to it!, it's hugely entertaining as well as informative and insightful.

Botanic Gardens - Amazing!

If you haven't been to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens lately, you really should, they are looking amazing! Flowers are popping out all over, and everything looks lush and abundant.

Gecko glue

This fascinating story tells about a new dry adhesive that mimics the way geckoes hold themselves on walls and ceilings.